Contaminants, such as hazardous, polluting, or toxic materials or wastes, are a health and safety problem for the United States and for countries world-wide. Governmental agencies, commercial companies, the military, and consumers are searching for more cost-effective technologies that can be used to remove these hazardous and polluting materials. Moreover, environmental regulations are mandating a change to sustainable management of soil and water contamination.
Contaminants are continuously produced by activities of humans on the planet. In addition, natural causes can release or create contaminants in the environment. Oil and radioactive elements are naturally released into the environment and natural disasters, such as floods, create polluted areas in their wake. In addition to the on-going production of waste materials, there is a large amount of contamination from human and natural activities in the past.
The costs of cleaning up the environment are staggering. These costs are a drain on the economies of thriving countries and are an almost insurmountable problem for poorer countries. Many of the current technologies for removing hazardous or contaminating wastes from the environment require transportation over long distances and involve sophisticated machinery or personnel, all of which add to the costs, environmental contamination, and do not support local communities.
Current methods of waste treatment are generally not adequate for remediating the contaminated air, soil or water. Chemical treatment can be used on some wastes, but there may be hazardous by-products, leachate or sludge produced by treatment. Wastes may be isolated or altered through methods such as stabilization, solidification or encapsulation. But, in these approaches the waste is merely contained, not destroyed or converted. Additionally, the problem of storage of the contained waste is created.
What is needed are compositions and methods that can perform bioremediation, such as at a contaminated or polluted site, or to remediate materials such as soil or water that have an excess of unwanted biological material or other contaminating or polluting compounds, or to enhance the health and sustainability of the local natural environment, that can be applied to a wide variety of environments. Even more ideally, would be a bioremediation system that would not only remove or stabilize the contaminated wastes, but would also be capable of converting some of the wastes into usable products. What is also needed are methods and compositions for enhancing biological processes, such as enhancing plant growth.